And his fame went throughout all Syria: and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatick, and those that had the palsy; and he healed them.
Ver. 24. And his fame went through all Syria] Fame followeth desert, as a sweet scent the rose. This gave occasion to the poets to feign that Achilles' tomb was ever garnished with green amaranth. "A good name is better than great riches," saith Solomon, Proverbs 22:1. And if I can keep my credit, I am rich enough, saith the heathen. (Ego si bonam famam servasso, sat dives ero. Plaut.) Blessing and good report are expressed by one and the same word in the Old Testament, to show what a blessing of God it is. And it could not but be a great comfort to David, that whatsoever he did pleased the people, 2 Samuel 3:36. Cicero saith that perfect glory consisteth in these three things: if the multitude love a man, if they will trust him, and if they hold him worthy of admiration, praise, and honour. (Offic. ii. 5.) Now none of these were wanting to our Saviour, as appeareth in his holy history, and as others have fully set forth. "Do worthily in Ephratah, and so be famous in Bethlehem," Ruth 4:11 .
And they brought unto him all sick people] All that were in ill case and taking: for, Si vales, bene est, If you are well I am well, saith one; and, Vita non est vivere, sed valere, Life is not to live, but influence, saith another. The Latins call a sick man aeger, which some derive of αι, αι, the voice of complaint and grief. And the Stoics when they affirmed that to live agreeable to nature is to live virtuously and valiantly, although the body be never so out of order, they perceived when their own turn came to be sick, saith Jerome, se magnificentius locutos esse quam verius, that they had spoken more trimly than truly.
That were taken with divers diseases and torments] That were besieged and hemmed in on every side, as by an enemy straitened and perplexed (συνεχομενους), so that they knew not whither to look, only their eyes were toward Christ.
Diseases and torments] As of those that are put upon the rack. Pharaoh was so when God extorted from him that confession, "I have sinned;" which (being gotten off) he soon bit in again. The word here used in the original (βασανος), properly signifieth the test or touchstone, wherewith gold is tried; and, by a borrowed kind of speech, is applied to all kind of examination, and (peculiarly) to inquisition by torture, to any pain or painful diseases, as of the palsy, lunacy, &c., in this text, and Matthew 8:6. As also to the torments of hell,Luke 16:23, whereof sicknesses are but a beginning, a foretaste, a very typical hell to those that have not the fruits of their sickness. (Morbos virtutum officinas vocat. Ambrosius.) And this "is all the fruits, even the taking away of their sin," Isaiah 27:9. I blush not to confess, saith a great divine of Scotland, that I have gained more sound knowledge of God and of myself in this sickness than ever I had before. (Non erubesco profiteri, &c. Rolloc. apud. Melch. Adam.) Happy sickness, that draws the sick matter out of the soul. Physicians hold that in every two years there is such store of ill humours and excrements engendered in the body, that a vessel of one hundred ounces will scarcely contain them. Certain it is, there is a world of wickedness and superfluity of naughtiness (that bed of spiritual diseases) daily gathered and gotten together in the sin-sick soul: which therefore we must labour to purge out by the practice of mortification, lest God purge and whiten us to our sorrow by some sharp sickness, Daniel 11:35; Dan 12:10 he did Gehazi, whose white forehead had made him a white soul: his disease cured him, as some are of the opinion,2 Kings 5:27 .
Possessed with devils] Such as whose minds and senses the devil perverted.
Those that were lunatic] Or such as had the falling sickness, as appeareth by those symptoms of this disease set down by St Matthew. Mat 17:15 (Scultet. Exerc. Evang. ii. 12.) This is otherwise called Morbus Sacer Sacred disease. For the priests of old (that they might thereby enrich themselves) feigned that the gods tormented men with this, among other sudden and fearful diseases. (Becman, Orig. Ling. Latinae.)